


Lemon Trees on Mercury

by beckett77



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M, Spoilers, The spoilerest thing that ever spoiled, that movie was asking for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckett77/pseuds/beckett77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean asks how the Jaegers work.<br/>"Pilots," Dad says. "Pair for each unit."<br/>Sam never had a chance at normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memories of Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers guys, for real. I wouldn't read if you haven't seen the movie.
> 
> The universe was demanding someone dip the Supernatural pen in the Pacific Rim ink. Who am I to deny the universe?

Sam’s brother doesn’t believe in angels, but it’s impossible for him to deny aliens. Especially not when they’re in San Francisco, doing some legwork for a case of Dad’s, when the first kaiju busts through the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Sam’s fifteen, tall enough to pass for older, but under strict commands to stay in the Impala while Dean handles the business. He weighs the reward of eating Dean’s _Don’t Touch_ bag of M &Ms against the risk of his wrath. Screams interrupt his reach for the candy, and he surges out of the car on instinct. But there’s no single person who needs his help. The scream is en masse, tearing from thousands of throats as people rush down the street. 

Sam spins, drops, uses the Impala’s open door as a shield. There must be some kind of deranged gunman on the loose. People don’t notice anything else properly. Sam keeps his eyes trained in the direction the main thrust of the crowd is coming from. Not long before he sees it. A massive foot. 

Sam’s first thought is that it’s kind of beautiful, with skin that swirls from gray to blue and back again. His second thought is _what the fuck_ when something heavy slams into him.

“Always gotta be macking on the monsters, Sammy,” Dean says, pants into his brother’s ear. Dean has him smashed up against the car door and if his grip on Sam’s wrist weren’t grinding his bones together, Sam might almost think his brother is really joking.

The giant foot decimates a cupcake shop at the end of the block. Everything smells like burnt sugar and hysteria. Dean hauls Sam to his feet. “C’mon.”

“What about our car?” Sam asks. He doesn’t know why it seems important when Godzilla is crushing his way toward them.

Dean gives him a faintly surprised look. For the past two years Sam has called the Impala his, yours - never ours. “We’ll come back for her.”

They take off, keeping low, weaving through the people in tandem. Dean shouts advice to them that goes unheard. Sam pretends not to hear the cracks in Dean’s voice and Dean doesn’t insist on holding Sam’s hand.

* * *

Dad sends them to collect the Impala two weeks later. Where the hell he’s been for the whole time they don’t ask. Neither do they complain about the whole three days it takes them to clear a drivable path through the rubble. 

Finally they climb into the car at the untorn edge of the interstate. Sam stares at churned earth and swatted-down airplane wreckage as they pass. The world’s a place that believes in the unbelievable now, and Sam feels surprisingly awful about all the newfound company. Maybe he cares a little more about the family business than he thought.

* * *

Demon possessions skyrocket in the climate of human fear. Bobby doesn’t say he thinks the aliens are using a forgotten Hell Gate, not to Sam anyway, but Sam’s a smart kid. Dad goes sharper around the edges, leaves his youngest at the junkyard, safer in landlocked middle America, and takes Dean out demon hunting. 

Sam sucks at mechanics and he hates physical training, but he thinks these skills are going to be important for living out the apocalypse. Dean tests him every time he comes home from an exorcism until Sam can dismantle and reassemble old Chevy engines as fast as he can. His big brother claps him on the shoulder, heads inside. 

Sam looks at the small grease smudge Dean’s hand left behind. He hates his father. It isn’t the kaiju who made them this way.

* * *

Dad starts leaving Dean at Bobby’s too. Dean’s twenty-two, not a goddamn titty-sucking baby for Christ’s sake, but Dad barks stay, so Dean says _yes sir_.

All Sam’s adolescent plans to run away to college crumble along with the costal campuses he dreamed of. He’s snappish under the weight of everything and Dean drinks way too much. They squabble and spar and Bobby does nothing to referee. 

Books pile up in Bobby’s office, spill out into the hallway. Whatever Dad’s into, he’s told Bobby about it and it’s nothing good. Even the sky has an air of waiting.

Sam’s pinned beneath Dean who threatens to drop a string of spit directly into Sam’s mouth if he doesn’t just fucking give up already when Dad appears in Bobby’s living room. They haven’t seen him in a month. Dean loses control of his saliva bomb. Sam wipes the wet explosion off his neck and rolls his brother off of him. 

Dad narrows his eyes. “Thought you two were technically adults.”

Dean’s up in a flash, but Sam stays sprawled out on the faded rag-rug Bobby’s wife made in another lifetime. “Thought families were supposed to weather the end of the world together.”

Dad snorts, turns on the ancient television set. “Boys, you oughta see this.”

It takes a minute for the digital converter to kick in, but once it does, Sam doesn’t really comprehend what’s on screen.

“Dude,” Dean breathes. 

Sam agrees. 

A kaiju fights what looks like a gigantic Rock’em Sock’em Robot. This alien’s even bigger than the one that took out San Francisco. Somehow, the robot’s beating it. 

Bobby clatters down the stairs and stands silently watching with the rest of them. He presses a solemn foot against Sam’s knee. Sam looks around Dean to Dad’s face. It’s lit up, his eyes burning as he watches the fight.

There’s an uncomfortable lurch in Sam’s middle. He thinks about Rasputin. He wonders which of them is going to end up with the Anastasia story.

A genuinely cheerful newscaster pops up on screen. “The government has just unveiled the newest line of defense – Jaegers. These fighting machines are the result of a global effort to defend all of humanity against the Kaiju threat. As this footage from earlier today shows, we may have finally found a solution for our problems.”

Dad switches off the television.

“How do they work?” Sam asks.

Dad doesn't pretend not to know. “Pilots. A pair of them.”

* * *

Any chance that Sam ever had at normality dies the moment Dean sees the Jaegers. Dad’s not as ex-military as they thought, which actually explains a lot about how he never gets into any serious trouble for his federal crimes. Marshall Crowley, who, up until the Jaegers, ran the Spook Department, has Dad pulled as a special consultant for the Jaegers. Seems Crowley was the only candidate for head of operation. Everyone else lacked the flexibility of mind. Dad mutters about stiff-necked military types and Dean most determinedly does not let Sam catch his eye. 

What Dean does do is learn everything he can about the Jaegers: their specs, how they operate, demands that Sam record each and every pilot interview. Dean looks at footage of the robots with the sort of reverence that he reserves for the Impala. Dad watches Dean like a falconer with a newly trained hawk. Sam’s so sick of the whole thing that he could murder both of them. Instead, he sits tense with Bobby and his books for the better part of a year.

Until one Thursday. Dad walks in and actually smiles at the boys. Sam doesn’t look up from his reading. Dean straightens right out of his sullen slump on the couch.

“Son, have I got news for you,” Dad says to Dean.

“Sir?”

“They’re commissioning a new series. Mach Fives.”

Dean can’t sit up any straighter, but he tries. “What are they powering them with? Are you working with the mechanics? Do they need help?”

Dad shakes his head. “Not mechanics, no.”

Dean wilts.

“Pilots.”

Sam throws the very fragile copy of _The Book of the Law_ against the wall.

* * *

Nothing in the house or the junkyard can contain Sam. He twists through the abandoned cars, cracking windows and mirrors at random, sneaking off to town when he can. The kaiju attacks are more frequent. Sam's increasingly unpleasant. By the time Dean finishes his rushed training course and is ready for pilot selections, Bobby’s more than happy to send Sam off with his Dad to watch. 

Neither of them has spoken to the other since the night Dean left, but there’s no way either would miss this day, so they load into the car and bear the silent ride all the way to New Mexico. 

They make it through security and over to the trials in decent time, but they’re still already half over. Dean’s sparring with a caramel-and-hazel colored girl who moves like she might pull a vanishing act at any time. She loses, but she gives Dean a friendly enough smile. Dean looks over her head and spots them. He waves, but they can’t talk until he’s done.

Sam gets bored pretty quick. None of these opponents are a real challenge for his brother. Undoubtedly many of them fight well, but none of them fall into the familiar blur of motion. Sam counts the rivets in the wall. Finally, there are no other opponents left. Dean stands bold and defiant, like he always does when he’s ashamed, and drips sweat all over the mat. 

A round man in a black uniform marks off papers on his clipboard, shakes his head. “Perhaps next time, Mr. Winchester,” he says.

Anger rolls off of Dad in controlled waves. He strides to the round man and starts in on him as only John Winchester can. 

Sam doesn’t care. He’s glad about whatever this is. It means Dean can’t pilot.

The last opponent's staff lies abandoned on the edge of the mat. Sam scoops it up. Taps Dean on the shoulder with it.

Dean swats him away. “Not now, Sammy." If his brother is left alone in this state, they’re in for a very sulky visit.

“Yes now. Bet you’re scared. I’m way bigger.” Dean shoots him a dirty look. Sam goes for the kill. “Everywhere.” He smirks and leans on his staff.

Dean’s off right away and Sam barely blocks his first strike in time.

“You just got more area to target, Gigantor.” Dean grins at him sharp.

They don’t say any more, just carry on like they always do. Sam fades away into the soothing routine of foiling his brother. None of his dirty tricks work on Sam and not a single one of Sam’s clever gambits fool Dean. Their fight ends in a draw; Dean’s staff to Sam’s throat, Sam’s to his heart.

Clapping echoes all around them. For a second Sam hears the screams of people on a street in San Francisco, but it quickly fades back into the sound of applause. There are several pilot candidates hanging about, including the caramel girl, but the most enthusiastic noise comes from the round man in black. He looks Sam over with a considered eye. “And you are?” the man asks.

Sam doesn’t like the over-interest in his accented tone. “Depends. Who’re you?”

“Ooo, you are quite fun. Much more like the old man than this one,” the stranger indicates Dean with a wave of his gloved hand. “A pity John wants to keep you well out of it.”

“Marshall Crowley,” Dad growls, but he’s gone a little gray.

“Why’s it a pity?” Sam asks, getting angry himself.

Crowley smiles. “Darling,” he says, “your brother could be a great pilot. All his scores are the very tip of the top. But you see he has to be drift compatible with someone to do it.” Crowley looks at his list. “We’ve tried all the available candidates.”

“Sir,” Dean protests, “that can’t be right. There’s gotta be a match for me.”

The Marshall dusts invisible dirt from his sleeve. “Oh, there is.”

“There is?”

Dad makes a strangled noise.

“Of course. Say hello to Sammy.”

* * *

Dad and Dean are a united front of _no_ for about an hour before Dad blows up, says do whatever the fuck stupid ass thing you fucking want Samuel, and storms out. That leaves Dean on his own, and it's not a fair fight.

Dean tries though. “Not fucking letting you. And that’s final. Go home.”

“The attacks are coming faster and harder. Fighting them’s good enough for you, but not for me?”

“You’ve got college and shit. You’ve got a chance. All I’d do is end up a dead hunter.”

Dean has every intention of dying in a suicidal blaze of glory. Sam has never been so angry before, not even the time when he was twelve and Dad tossed him some dental floss, said _get Dean_ and left to follow a lead that turned out to be a bust. Sam punches his brother so hard that his knuckles split. Dean sags against the bed, his breath comes out with a whoosh.

“Sam,” Dean hisses.

“Fuck you.”

Dean struggles upright. “Maybe I don’t want you in my head.”

Sam wrenches open the door. “Shut up and watch me save your asshole life.”

* * *

Tests are nothing to Sam. He passes them all with scores that exactly match Dean’s. They’re well above all the other piloting candidates. Sam doesn’t hold it against them. Not everyone has been a soldier since their hands were big enough to hold a gun.

Dean avoids him, keeps trying every single student in combat. They all fail. Marshall Crowley is gleeful about this, comes around to check on Sam regularly.

“My moose,” Crowley says, “going to make an honest woman of the squirrel.”

Sam sees how the Marshall used to keep track of the hunters. He’s just as crazy as any of them.

* * *

Crowley stages trials for Sam. Sam runs through the charade in a quarter the time it took Dean. One dark-haired girl with the most amazing lips makes him break a sweat, but that’s about it. 

Dad is not pleased. 

The Marshall is. “Looks like your other boy’s got the same problem. Only one match will do.”

Sam ignores the Marshall. Most of the pilots are family. Parents and children, brother and sisters. The stronger the bond, the better the connection.

Dean waits out the trials in the infirmary – claims he has some kind of stomach bug. It doesn’t matter. Sam gets assigned to him anyway.

* * *

Someone pounds on Sam’s door. Garth, one of the tiniest and newest of the trainees smiles up at Sam when he opens it. “Big news,” he says. “And I mean big.”

Garth reminds Sam of Bobby, who he misses fiercely. “Well?”

“Your girl. She’s done.”

Sam doesn’t have the same love of Jaegers as Dean, but he still punches the air. “Yes! Really? Thanks for telling me, man.”

They head over to the launching bay. If it were go time, Sam would find Dean and kick his ass into gear, but this is only a sneak preview. It’s been a week and they still haven’t drifted together. Sam suspects Marshall Crowley lets Dean slink off because it gives him some sense of perverse amusement.

The Jaeger’s parked in the deepest recess of the bay, still attached to hundreds of umbilical-like hoses. It’s black, faintly swirled with a shimmering gray. More humanoid in shape than any of the other Jaegers, it has a lean presence, like a predator in wait. It’s maybe the most beautiful thing Sam has ever seen.  
He and Garth press up against the rail, craning their necks, taking in everything they can.

“Get the hell down from there,” Dean shouts from behind him. Probably because he didn’t recognize his brother, crouched over as he is. Dean freezes. His jumpsuit is engineering blue and Sam thinks he had a lot more to do with putting the Jaeger together than most pilots.

All at once the sirens set up a wail. Red light pierces the bay again and again. Crew members mill in every direction, heading to hundreds of stations. Dean looks at Sam over all of their heads. His lips are tight and thin. Sam follows him up to the launch tower. 

Crowley’s already there, prowling from one side of the control panel to the other. “Ah, boys,” he calls out, jovial in his dressiest uniform, “I’m afraid this isn’t a drill.”

Dean stops short.

“Yes,” Crowley says, “this is it. The big one. Seems that the multiple kaiju have attacked. All but three Jaegers were deployed. Half of them were destroyed.”

Sam’s going to throw up. 

“And the other half?” Dean asks.

The Marshall doesn't quite smile. “Possessed.”

“Fuck me,” says Dean.

“No time for that, squirrel.” Crowley rubs his worm-white fingers together. “We leave to rendezvous with the other Jaegers immediately.”

* * *

Deep beneath a Welsh mountainside Sam and Dean are met by a man with very dark hair and very blue eyes. His flight suit reminds Sam of a trench coat.

“I am Castiel,” the man says. “I am with Leviathan.”

Fangirl glee replaces Dean’s leftover tension from the airplane. “I know who you are!” Dean says. “Leviathan, the only Mach One to last. You took out a Level Four kaiju on your own.”

“Not entirely,” calls out a female voice. A pale woman with a sardonic tilt to her head joins Castiel. “Meg Masters. A better co-pilot than God.”

Castiel rolls his shoulders. “Meg. We have spoken of the reckless abandon with which you break the Commandments.”

Meg smiles at Dean. “Don’t worry about Clarence. He’s just the holiest little tax accountant.” She pinches Castiel’s face and drags him along the corridor by the neck of his suit. She says _come with me if you want to live._

What they walk into is a war council. Sam can’t think of any other way to describe it. Dean forgets they’re fighting and elbows him in the ribs. He waggles an eyebrow. “Just like the movies, eh, Sammy?”

Crowley, Dad, Bobby, a tiny blonde child, a thin red-headed woman, and an imposing African-American man are all ranged around a square table. Meg lines her boys up along the empty side of the table. “Where’s Roadhouse’s crew?”

“Present and accounted for.” An older woman with a mass of fawn-colored hair joins them. At her side is a slender blonde girl with the same large eyes. The older woman nods at the Winchesters. “Ellen and Jo Harvelle.”

“Gang's all here.” Crowley points at Bobby. “I think you’ll explain it best.”

By the end of Bobby’s speech, Sam’s head is spinning. Seems there was supposed to be a good old fashioned Biblical apocalypse, all the remaining pilots were to have a key role in it, naturally, but instead the aliens interrupted. Aliens aren’t outside God’s control exactly, but the angels and demons had banded together to stop these ones once before, back when the kaiju were called dinosaurs, and they certainly weren’t about to let those assholes tear up a planet they were about to have an epic battle for, thank you very much.

“Plus, can you imagine their nerve, using my own Hell Gates against me?” Crowley slams his fist into the table. “Cheek. Pure cheek.”

For Sam the worst part is that they only people who are even a little surprised are he, Dean, and the Harvelles. “Aren’t you worried?” Sam asks Meg.

She shows him a sliver of teeth and her eyes go black. “Course not, moosey.” Meg slaps a proprietary hand on Castiel’s ass. “Got me an angel by my side.”

“We are not in private,” Castiel hisses. Sam swears he can hear the whisper of ruffled feathers.

Dean drags his eyes away from the Leviathan pilots. “So what are we going to do about the kaiju?”

It turns out that what they are going to do is cover Leviathan while Castiel and Meg take it down to drop a nuclear bomb in the gateway. 

“Warfare against particles themselves,” the child says, toying with the ends of her pale curls, “how human a contribution.”

Uriel, the only man at the table Sam doesn’t know, snorts. “They had to be useful sometime.”

* * *

Sam’s brother doesn’t believe in angels, but now that he’s been in a room full of them, he can’t deny they exist. If only it weren’t the end of the world. Then Sam would really go to town with the _I told you so_ s. Dean tells him to shut up anyway. Thinking you know everything, smart ass Sammy.

Dad comes into the engineering room where his sons are waiting for the crew to finish the final adjustments on their Jaeger. His feet fall heavily on the concrete. “Boys,” he begins.

“What?" Dean cuts him off. "Come to tell us sorry for plotting with the enemy?”

The look Dad gives him could level a mountain. “Priorities, son, priorities.”

“No,” Dean says. “Fucking me over? Fine. But -” He rubs a hand over his red eyes. “Some things are supposed to come first.”

* * *

Garth suits Sam up, taking the place of a fallen technician. The little trainee prattles on and on about how Sam’s going to be just fine, he’s going to be a hero, but Sam doesn’t hear him. Earth is pretty much done for. All Sam feels is dizzy.

The final fastening of his suit snaps into place just as Dean walks up, and he’s so cool in his own armor, every inch the big brother Sam’s always worshipped. 

Dean taps Sam’s breast plate. “Awesome, huh? You look like Master Chief. Hippie edition.”

“Did you even play that game?”

“No,” Dean says, “read the novels. Out loud. To you.”

Sam doesn't snark back. He’s busy studying his brother’s freckles, rememorizing the patterns they make across his face. Last supper of a famished man.

* * *

Bobby throws everyone else out of the control room – Garth literally. He claps the brothers on the shoulder, looks them in the eye. “I know they told you this in class, but you gotta remember that the drift’s two ways. Let go, yeah, but you also gotta accept.” Bobby flicks Sam’s ear. “That’s the part they forget to stress.”

Sam doesn’t get all of this bullshit rigmarole about drifting – it’s him and Dean, no secrets there – but he _yes sirs_ Bobby and ignores his brother’s armored arm shaking against his.

There’s a suspicious shine to Bobby’s eyes. He clears his throat. “What’re you naming her?”

Dean’s response is instant. “The Mary-Karen.”

Sam nods.

Tears are fully formed on Bobby’s face now. He salutes them. “That’s my boys.”

* * *

Mary-Karen’s head is too stuffed with circuits and gadgetry to be properly hollow, but it feels that way to Sam.

Crowley’s voice in his helmet, “Mental handshake, commence.”

Sam relaxes his mind, opens it to his brother. Nothing.

“Shake now, squirrel, or I’ll send a dear child along to do it for you.”

This time Dean seizes Sam before he’s ready. 

_I'm sorry_ , Dean says in his head. _So sorry, Sammy_


	2. That Blew Through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter finally.
> 
> ...See what I did there?

* * *

_Dean hates San Francisco. The fucking worst. Never any goddamn parking._

_“Stay here,” he tells Sammy. The kid looks at him as if Dean’s the one outlaw in like every Western who sells his gang to the police. Dean pats his squinched up face. “Death penalty if you touch my candy.”_

_Dad’s contact lives above a cupcake bakery. Hunters and cupcakes go together like two things that don’t go together, if you ask Dean. Which nobody ever does. Well, Sam used to, but now he’s got stretched bones and if there’s anything he doesn’t know, he looks it up himself. Dean thinks that he’ll buy them both something on the way out. Pink and sprinkled. Cupcake for the cupcake, he’ll say. His brother will flip him off, eat it anyway._

_Turns out Dad’s contact is a witch. She gives Dean the heebie-jeebies and little information. He gets up. “Thanks, ma’am.”_

_“You want to know the answer, young man?”_

_Terror is a swelling sound outside. Dean stays put._

_Witch Lady turns bright, soft eyes on his face. “You’ll not find another. No cure.”_

_Dean leaves. In a hurry._

_Outside, Sam is an island. Revering the threat while the rest fly away. Dean runs to him, even shoves a little girl out of his way. Finally, he has his brother safe against the Impala. Sam’s baby eyes are round and his baby skin is rough under Dean’s grasp._

_“Always gotta be macking on the monsters, Sammy.” Dean leans into him. Wishes he were the kind of monster who shows it on the outside._

* * *

Baby Sam. Asshole Sam. Kid Sam. Sulky Sam. Wicked Sam. Joyful Sam. Fuckface Sam. The real Sam is nearly swept away in the jumbled stream of self. Nothing here is only Dean. Everything is Sam. _Sam is everything._

_Sam’s eyes ringed black. Blood running down Sam’s collarbone. Sam’s skin, downy in the sunlight, twisting Dean’s stomach, his heart._

Sam wants to be gone from his brother’s head. Seeing himself from all of these angles, there’s something off about it. Private. If God wanted people to see themselves through each other’s eyes, consciousness would be collective.

But holy fuck, who knew that Dean was so empty of self? So full of… Sam can’t, won’t name it. Sure, they cling too intense, but that’s Dad’s fault. He made them into something beyond siblings. But Sam never knew – never honestly thought... 

Fuck, isn't the determined way he follows Dean is bad enough? Could it really have been _this_ all along?

 _Sammy. Sammy. Please,_ Dean whispers into the drift, sags forward in his harness to look at his brother in the face, _don’t leave._

Sam extends his hand, feels the Jaeger move along with him. He thinks about Dean. His caretaker, protector, best fucking friend. His brother. He needs Sam, and the entire world needs them. 

Sam remembers the night with the fireworks, the first day of high school, the summer when they sang _Grease_ duets loudly even at stoplights, all the times when his insides ballooned with love for Dean. Sam wills himself back into the deeps of the drift.

“I’m not going anywhere. Not until this is over.”

* * *

Crowley’s voice crackles into their helmets. “So, are the Hardy boys ready to fight some aliens?”

Sam and Dean walk MK down from the launch pad. There’s a ragged cheer from the remaining crew.

“Splendid. Get into position with Roadhouse and Leviathan then.” Crowley sounds disappointed.

Dean really wants to flip him off, decides against it. So Sam does it. Dean laughs and the drift goes golden. Sam shivers in his armor.

Leviathan waits with crossed arms. “Jaeger MK, if you are done with your display of insubordination, we have a world to save.”

“Sorry, Cas,” Dean says. “Some birds just fly away from ya.”

Sam groans. “That was terrible. You really need to work on your action hero quips.”

“Whatever. If I were aiming for hero, my sidekick would be way hotter than you.”

“Ladies,” Meg says, “please save your brotherly flirting for Hell where it belongs.”

For a second Sam has a terrible, irrational fear that Meg and Cas are linked into their drift too, but he knows it’s not possible.

Meg laughs into their ears again. “Hit a bull’s eye with that one. What do you think, Clarence?”

“It is not for me to think. Though yes, that would indeed make them abominations.”

“All right,” Ellen cuts through Meg’s cackling. “Like you said, we’ve got a world to save.” She and Jo begin to walk their unit, leading them out.

“Besides,” Jo says, “isn’t it way worse for an angel to fuck a demon?”

Dean looks over at Sam, eyes self-consciously wide. “I think I’m in love with her.”

Sam would know that wasn’t true even without the drift buzzing in his skull. He rolls his shoulders, tries to get rid of the too-tight feeling in his skin. “Then let’s go get her, tiger.”

* * *

To walk in a group formation is a strange, strange thing. Sam feels almost as though they’re going to break into a choreographed dance-off when they meet the kaijus, but that thought has a hysterical edge to it that he’d rather not indulge. 

They are not Sharks. They are not Jets. There are no girls named Maria. These are not the drones you’re looking for. I’m a doctor, not an escalator. There can be only one. 

For a half-second, Sam wishes a monster would pop up already and interrupt his jumbled thoughts, the tense silence between all the pilots.

“So Sammy,” Dean says, “are we the Socs or the Greasers? ‘Cause I feel like we’re headed for a 1950s throw down.”

Castiel comes over the communications line. “Submerge point reached. Engage.”

Sam holds his breath, like he’s going underwater for real, but he sees how stupid that is and exhales. "You're Ponyboy," he tell Dean.

They sink slowly to the bottom of the sea floor, following the blocky shapes of Roadhouse and Leviathan. Everything looks weird in the glow of their headlamps and there’s no way the kaiju aren’t going to realize that they’re coming. 

They’re still miles out from the hell gate when the first one shows up. It’s huge. Massive. Eyes the size of MK’s head. 

Sam and Dean try to take it on first, but Roadhouse steps into the fray. “No,” Ellen says. “You keep following. You’ve got the newest model, stick with the plan.”

“We’re the most inexperienced pilots,” Dean says, punches through the kaiju’s eye. “We’ll stay.”

The cloud of blood hides Roadhouse from sight. Sam sees lots of dark masses coming in. Fast.

“Exactly,” Jo says. “We can stand alone. Distract them. You’re wasting time.”

“Dean,” Sam says, quiet.

They take off after Leviathan. Sam doesn’t look back. Doesn’t want to watch the mother and child die, swarmed by enemies they can’t see.

* * *

Any hope Sam had that the bulk of the kaiju were behind him is scuttled a mile out from the hell gate. There are two circling, larger than any ever recorded. In the light from the gate, Sam can see them in all their glory. He still finds them strangely beautiful, but this aesthetic quirk of his is flattened by fury. 

Leviathan moves lightly in front of them, more like a creature accustomed to flying than a giant robot. Cas and Meg have turned off their lamps, and they’ve almost crept past, but the second, slightly smaller kaiju spots them. It has a spiked tail that it winds around Levithan’s legs, tripping it totally to the ground.

Just like that the second kaiju is on Sam and Dean and everything is thick and fast and awful. Dean pulls a shot gun-like thing from between their Jaeger’s shoulder blades that Sam swears wasn’t there before.

“I built it in,” Dean says to Sam’s unspoken question. “Familiar weaponry is good, right?”

They don’t have time for the thread of anxiety that threads through Dean – who is, Sam realizes, looking for approval even now. Jesus. There is no space for sad. Sam focuses on holding the barrel of the gun, imagines the exact feel of worn metal on his hands. Lines up the shot. Dean takes it, and the kaiju’s not dead, but he’s hurt enough that they have a chance.

They follow the alien, pumping not-bullets into it until the kaiju finally manages to knock the gun from their hands. It charges them, but he and Dean can both sense its desperation. This is the kaiju’s once more unto the breach moment. Though Sam does not intend for it to be a triumphant one. 

Jaeger and kaiju entangle, kicking and punching, rolling on the ancient, oceanic earth. They take damage to their life systems. The lights are flickering and the pressure and oxygen sensors are going wild. 

Until suddenly, Dean’s trying not to breathe too hard, cursing the air blue, slowly slicing his arm through the kaiju’s neck while Sam pins it down, and then it’s dead. It’s not a victory though because there are already more of them swimming their way and Leviathan’s kneeling, not moving.

“Cas,” Dean pants. “What’s going on over there?”

“It seems we have lost the ability of motion,” Cas says. “Also our bomb has been activated.”

Meg’s voice gurgles like there’s blood in her throat. “We need you two to run it over there.”

Sam can make out features on the kaiju now and the gate’s still a mile away. “What’s the countdown?”

“Twenty-five seconds.”

Dean says that they’ll never make it, and Sam has an awful idea. A wonderful, awful idea. He cuts across Dean’s spluttering. “Can you two leave your vessels?”

“Jimmy abdicated a long time ago. Yes."

Sam stands up. “Good. Stay here, take as many out as you can with your bomb. Then get out. We have a reactor in our core.”

There’s a sick wave of horror coming from Dean, but he doesn’t argue. He helped build the Jaeger. He knows exactly what Sam means to do. 

It’s the only real solution. The brothers don’t say anything else. Only run and run.

But they can still hear Cas and Meg. She says, “How partial are you to this meatsuit?”

“I’m not.” Cas sounds surprised. “It’s your true face that holds me.”

The bomb’s radiation starts to interfere with their signal, but Sam swears Meg is crying. “However long it takes, Clarence, you better find me.”

Then Sam can’t hear anymore and the hell gate’s getting so close. Dean’s still running, but he’s starting to slow. Sam looks at his brother and he’s an ungodly purple. Sam's cold all over. “You turned off your sensor warnings,” Sam says. “You have no oxygen.”

Dean smiles. “Just rerouted it to you is all.”

They’re close enough now to jump. Sam doesn’t move, neither does Dean, who’s pulled off his helmet. “Think there’s enough air in this cabin for the rest of my life,” he says, gets to work on overriding the reactor’s safeguards. “But you need to get in your escape pod and go.”

Dean doesn’t look at him, keeps keying things into the controls on his side, refuses all prods to motion. Sam can’t move the Jaeger alone. He can’t do anything alone. 

"You need to fucking go. Before. I don't know if you'd make it back out once you're in."

"No."

"Please. Just please."

Dean gets up like he has every intention of making Sam move. Whether he wants to or not.

Luckily the pulse of Leviathan’s explosion hits then and knocks them into the gate, which swallows them eagerly.

* * *

There’s an overwhelming sense of wrongness being in the portal. It’s both cylindrical and shapeless, and Sam sees light crackle and streak past them, but it does nothing to illuminate the inside of the Jaeger. He can only see what's outlined in the red of the emergency lights. Which doesn’t really matter, since everything he sees is Dean, and he doesn’t need light for that.

Sam comes over to his brother, who's been knocked to the ground. Dean resumes taping and taping away, until finally his fingers go completely still. He runs a trembling hand over his unhelmted head.

“Everything set?”

Dean looks up at him. “Yeah. Pod launches in two minutes." He makes his _you will not argue face_ "Get in. I’ll stay and make sure we reach our bomby destination.”

Sam looks at Dean who he can’t see properly, but who he sees perfectly, and he doesn’t kiss him.

He thinks about it very loudly though. About the catching slide of chapped lips against chapped lips. The way that Dean's irises would look from that close because Sam would keep his eyes open and so would his brother. 

Dean chokes out _Sammy_ , tries to stand up. Sam punches him on the side of the jaw with an armored hand, sends Dean’s head and body spinning.

Sam crouches over his brother. He’s out, which is the point. Sam picks up his unconscious body, carries him over the pods. There’s only one that works, which Dean must have known. Sam strips Dean of the rest of his armor with angry force, but he tucks Dean into the pod gently. Goes to seal it, but stops.

Dean looks like Snow White through the glass. 

Something about that is so terrible that Sam just stops. 

This is not a fairy tale. It is his real ass life, and he is eighteen and none of this was his fault and none of it was his choice. Doesn't he get a say?

He ignores the screaming alarms all around him and slides out of his armor too.

Sam turns Dean on his side, smushes himself into the space between Dean’s back and the inner edge of the tiny vessel. It’s tight, but he wraps his arms around his brother and the door’s able to close. The countdown says fifteen seconds to launch and the sweet scent of sleeping gas begins to fill the small space.

Sam doesn’t know if the Jaeger will destruct and explode as planned.

He doesn’t know that they’ll be able to make it back from here. 

He doesn’t know if there’ll be enough oxygen to support them both on a journey to the surface. 

He definitely doesn’t know that he wants to see anyone who sent Jo and Ellen and Cas and Meg and Dean down here to die.

What he does know is that he has Dean right here and he wants that. Sam wants to live with him and fight with him and yell at him and maybe kiss him for real next time. Sam doesn’t want to save the world. He wants his brother.

So Sam nuzzles into the back of Dean’s neck, waits for the sleeping gas to take him. The sound of alarms grows distant, peaceful. 

Sam holds tight and hopes against hope that they wake up again, washed away to the banks of some distant shore.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is Red Hot Chili Peppers. By the Way is an excellent album, okay?


End file.
